Influence of the amplitude nonreciprocity of the cavity on the characteristics of self-modulation oscillations in a solid-state ring laser

A theoretical investigation is reported of self-modulation of the first kind (SM-I) when the cavity losses are different for counterpropagating waves. It is shown that the frequency of self-modulation oscillations depends strongly on the amplitude nonreciprocity of the cavity. Estimates indicate that the difference between the absorption coefficients for counterpropagating waves in the SM-1 regime can be measured down to values of the order of 10^–10. The amplitude nonreciprocity is found to alter significantly the nature of the dependence of the self-modulation frequency on the excess of the pumping rate above the threshold. The feasibility of measuring the coupling coefficients of counterpropagating waves on the basis of backscattering is considered.